What does it sound like?
“We are happy with who we’re with now.”
Where does it typically tend to show up?
Prospecting Call, making contact with a lead for the first time.
What do we do with it?
Turn around. Key Objective: to turn around the objection, engage the lead further, and continue to guide the lead through the sales process to ultimately close and fund!
How do we turn around?
“Great! What do they do really well?”
Why do we say it?
“Great!” disrupts the merchant’s pattern. Most people expect the sales rep to either immediately get defensive, try to shove their way into the communication and hard-close the person on why they should listen to them and buy from them – OR – more commonly, the sales rep to fold and say, “ok” and hang up the phone.
Strategic Questions are the Funding Pro’s best tool to drive Results/Revenue.
“What do they do really well?” is a great question that keeps the conversation going and more importantly keeps the merchant talking. Keep the merchant talking to continue building rapport, elicit more information you can use to your advantage, and heighten the probability of you winning their business.
This question is counterintuitive to most of the kneejerk reactions sales reps have. If they are not scared off the phone by the merchant seemingly being happy just because they say they are, they will launch into why their company/product is so much better and they should do business with them.
The merchant doesn’t care. Merchant doesn’t care about you (yet) – why should they? They care about their business and their life – if you can communicate how you can improve both effectively, you have a seat at the table.
If there is a current company that is serving their needs, this is an exciting opportunity to meet their needs at a higher level. Best way to understand how to do this for each specific merchant is to elicit their evaluation criteria through strategic questions. This criteria is different for everyone.
“I really love my company, they have a portal I can log into.”
“I really love my rep over there, he always takes care of me.”
“I really appreciate how fast they have funded for me in the past.”
“This has been the best deal I have found so far.”
You will get to know what means the most to them – and what need is the highest priority for you to meet at an even higher level.
And, where there are needs being met, there is also most likely other needs or preferences that are not. There is always room for improvement – always more opportunity to be captured.
One question can open up doors that allow you to consult and guide them in your direction – establish yourself as someone who can meet those needs at an even higher level now or some time in the near future when it makes the most sense to them.
The more information you can draw out, the more leverage you have to speak to what they want and what they need. With creativity and persistence, you can win the business.
*ABBP*
Always Be Building Pipeline!
-FundingStrategist
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